I took the afternoon off, yesterday, and did two of my favorite things: cook and catch up on TV shows. Yes, I know that latter part is shallow, but sometimes you just need a break with some fictional crazy instead of your own. Amen?

So I was watching a woman talk to her counselor, and she said this…

I was thinking I would keep waiting for life to get easier. You know, lower stakes, less risk…easier. But now I’m thinking maybe it doesn’t. Maybe the struggle, the climb, one obstacle after another…maybe that’s just life.

In true counselor fashion, he asked her how it made her feel…if the realization discouraged her.

You’d think it would, but it’s actually kind of a relief. I can just stop waiting. I can just live.

This is me, through and through. I tend to mark my life by events and challenges, saying to myself…

“If I can just get through this, then things will die down a little.”

“I’ll work on that after this is over because I’ll have more time.”

“Thank heavens we are almost out of the woods and things can get back to normal.”

But what is normal, really? I don’t know about you, but normal around here is often challenging. It’s very likely to be filled with risk and anxiety, then wrapped up in change. And if it doesn’t fall into that type of package, it’s, at the very least, marked by some kind of disappointment or struggle.

This little TV-watching-escape turned out to be a big ol’ slap-me-upside-the-head reminder that I very often wait to live. I’m doing it now, in the midst of our current waiting game, allowing myself to sit in the limbo that it dictates, anticipating change instead of continuing to just live my life as it still is.

It’s crazy, and I’m missing it.

I don’t want to wait for things to get easier and care-free, because they won’t. Ever. We were never promised that. I want to live TODAY.

Live in the midst of the struggles…freely live in the midst of the grace.

“I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” John 16:33 NLT

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” Romans 8:18 ESV

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” James 1:2-4 ESV

“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” Galatians 5:1 ESV